My morning movement..
Living in NYC and riding mass transport every day can lead to varying degrees of annoyance or uplift.. depending on who you are stuck in a train car with. Some days you can get shoved in to what feels like a warm and balmy armpit containing an angry, tired herd of jaded New Yorkers while other days there's just a creepy man too close to your body for comfort that won't stop staring. There are the days where there's a mariachi band decked in cowboy hats with large instruments playing sweet songs (those are my favorite train rides) and days when kids too young to be performing for money are doing handstands in the midst of a packed train and getting tossed about by an older "roll model type" who's shown them the ways to making money on the streets. Today was just sort of insignificant. Until I hit 6th ave and a young pregnant woman got on the train and told the car full of commuters that she was living out of a shelter for pregnant women, that she was starving and fearful of being on the streets and if we could please give her any of our food or maybe even some change. I looked around at a car full of people who seemingly didn't hear anything she had said. Nobody moved until the train arrived at 8th ave.. they remained seated reading papers or drinking coffee. She looked tired and defeated. I dug around in my bag for change and noticed then that it were almost as if there were a holy figure on board because before exiting the train people lined up with their offerings (change, dollars, food). I found it really a beautiful and touching communal act of kindness and am still thinking about it. It's sad to say.. but I feel like most people just turn their cheek the other way and hope their ipod is loud enough to drown things out. But today people made me happy. It's nice to be reminded of that phenomenon.
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